The present invention relates to apparatus for the performance of liquid-crystal plate thermography with simultaneous photographic recording, and more particularly to such an apparatus which is compact in construction.
Pictorial representations of temperature distributions on objects can be obtained in a relatively simple known manner with the use of liquid crystals. One such technique is known as plate thermography, wherein thermographic plates are used that consist of a foil substrate coated with liquid crystals. When these thermographic plates are brought into contact with the skin, for example, the liquid crystals assume a color corresponding to the local heat content of the skin area.
Plate thermography has acquired special importance as a diagnostic aid. Since inflammatory and neoplastic changes influence the generation and transport of heat in tissue, these deviations from normal physiological processes result in recordable temperature differences at the skin surface.
One field of application for plate themography which has been attracting increasing attention recently is the diagnostic detection of breast cancer. Appropriate devices such as thermographic foils are on the market for use in this field. A particularly promising design of thermographic foil is the breast thermodetector. This is a flexible foil with two windows which permit the simultaneous plate-thermographic observation of both breasts in one step.